In this photo provided by StarPix, journalists from left to right, Tucker Carlson, Arianna Huffington, Anderson Cooper and James Carville pose before the Radio City Music Hall speaker series, Monday, April 21, 2008 in New York. MSG Entertainment hosted the first annual "Radio City Music Hall Speaker Series" entitled The Minds That Move The World" which is a series of events that will provide attendees with a unique framework for understanding America's current political landscape and place in word politics. (AP Photo/Dave Allocca, Starpix)

Photo: DAVE ALLOCCA

In this photo provided by StarPix, journalists from left to right,...

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"Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe (And What You Need to Know to End the Madness)" by Arianna Huffington

"And the Winner Is: McCain," screamed the banner headline on HuffingtonPost.com the day after Sen. Hillary Clinton defeated Sen. Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary.

The translation from Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington is implicit in the unwieldy title of her new book, "Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe (And What You Need to Know to End the Madness)."

To the 57-year-old nouveau liberal publisher, the Clinton campaign's "fearmongering" tactics show that it has succumbed to the same forces that have crippled the mainstream media and many politicians. This argument has been well ploughed elsewhere, including daily on the left-leaning "HuffPo": Because the mainstream media have not been critical enough - particularly of the Bush administration's reasons for invading Iraq - Americans have been misinformed and cowed into inaction and an unhealthy embrace of far-right-wing ideals.

What makes "Right Is Wrong" different from similar tomes is the unusual political journey of its Greek-born author. In the past dozen years, Huffington has transformed herself from an SUV-driving Republican married to ex-GOP multimillionaire congressman Michael Huffington into a Prius-driving founder of a Web site that is helping to transform the media landscape, largely by ripping the right. It was only 16 years ago that she contributed to President George H.W. Bush's re-election campaign. Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos, divorced Huffington in 1997.

To the surprise of those who dismissed Huffington as an air-kissing Hollywood schmoozer, the HuffPo has become a liberal must-read. It drew 5.2 million visitors in March, according to Nielsen Online. That's a 350 percent traffic increase over last year, more than most major newspaper sites and the online goliath, the Drudge Report. It could report $7.5 million in revenues this year, and its editorial and advertising staff has expanded to 50.

Later this spring, the HuffPo will further expand its vision, adding a local news section in several cities, beginning with Chicago. (Huffington says the Bay Area could be added later.) The reporters, as is the case with HuffPo's 1,800 bloggers, would be unpaid.

They are unpaid, Huffington says, "but also they have no requirements. They write when they want to write, they write when the spirit moves them. We provide a platform, we provide attention, we provide technology."

One of those unpaid bloggers, Oakland resident Mayhill Fowler, broke the story this month on HuffPo about Obama's description at a San Francisco fundraiser of "bitter" voters, which changed the dynamic of the campaign. Huffington said she had no problem running the story, even though she supports Obama. The site has not endorsed a candidate.

Huffington believes that the problem with the mainstream media isn't its ideology, it's that traditional outlets provide "equal time" to differing viewpoints, even when those viewpoints don't have equal merit.

"It's about facts and reality and truth," she says. "Global warming is not about ideology. How the war in Iraq is doing is not about ideology. It's not a question of right or left. That's another problem with the media is that they want to present everything as right versus left. In fact, it is right versus wrong."

While she scarcely mentions Clinton or Obama in her book, during a Chronicle podcast this week, Huffington lets loose on how Clinton's campaign has come to resemble one borrowed "from Karl Rove's playbook."

Between Clinton's 3 a.m. TV ad and her more recent advertisement featuring images of Obama bin Laden, Huffington says the right "has hijacked many political leaders. How else do you explain Hillary Clinton using the fear card?"

Huffington's 331-page book brims with diatribes against right-wingers. She recounts her epiphany about provocative commentator Ann Coulter after appearing with her on the Fox News Channel in 2006. Coulter, Huffington writes, is "the right-wing punditry's equivalent of crack or crystal meth. She's highly addictive - giving users the delirious, giddy high of outrageousness. But then the buzz wears off and they come crashing down, their spirits shriveled, their souls poisoned."

She used to be a fan of McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. But he has since "sold out" and shifted his positions to ones closer to Bush, she says. "This is a man who shouldn't be allowed to hold sharp scissors, let alone run for president of the United States, and Democrats and the media have a huge responsibility in exposing all that to the public," Huffington says.

The problem lies with the Beltway media's A-list, she argues. Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," is skewered in the book for letting his guests off the hook too easily. She calls ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson, "self-loathing liberals who have internalized the right-wing talking points" for asking questions about flag pins and Obama's pastor instead of about policy in a recent Democratic debate. The Washington Post's Bob Woodward is "the dumb blond of American journalism" for failing to connect the dots in the run-up to the Iraq war.

But while Huffington is pointed in her critiques, she offers few remedies. When asked about how the mainstream media can improve its failing business model, the founder of a booming Web site offers little more than "there has to be a lot more emphasis online."

Same goes for her political criticisms. She offers only a 2 1/2-page chapter at the end of the book on "Righting the Wrongs of the Right."

Since the media and politicians won't take on a watchdog role, "the most important remedy is the recognition that we can't just look to our leaders to solve this," she says. "That each one of us has that responsibility."

But she does have some advice for Obama on how to take on Clinton.

"Obama needs to convince the people he has not yet convinced that he will keep them safe," she says. "This is an appeal to the public's lizard brain. That part of our brain that is not rational, that responds to fear. Obama needs to respond to that, too."

To hear Arianna Huffington talk with Chronicle media writer Joe Garofoli about the presidential campaign and the media, go to sfgate.com/podcasts.

Arianna Huffington will talk about "Right Is Wrong" at noon on May 19 at the Commonwealth Club at the Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason St., San Francisco; $15 members, $30 non-members. (415) 597-6700; and at 7 p.m. May 19 at Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista, Corte Madera; free, (800) 999-7909.